The data capacity available on digital media has increased since the market introduction of such media, e.g. the DVD disk has a larger capacity than the CD disk. BD-ROM is the next generation of read-only optical disk standard, the BD disk provides a medium with even larger capacity since it will be possible to obtain a capacity of at least 25 GB on one layer.
The logical format of BD-ROM media defines the application of the disks, and currently work is being done to standardise this logical format (as well as the physical format). The large capacity of a BD disk renders possible the presence of a variety of applications on a single disk. The primary application is foreseen to be high definition TV (HDTV), however also interactivity applications such as web-connectivity and games may be part of the standard.
JAVA will be the enabling technology for the interactivity and BD players will contain a JAVA virtual machine with additional application programming interfaces (APIs) for controlling audio-visual (A/V) playback of the disk.
The use of a fully programmable system for BD-ROM results in a more complex verification and testing. The possible applications are endless, but also the differences between implementations of such a complex programmable platform are large, and some applications may not function properly on all devices. In case an application crashes then it might become impossible to play that disk on that player.
The inventors of the present invention have appreciated that improved means for reproducing data from media comprising digital data in more than one format is of benefit, and has in consequence devised the present invention.